
What was the first Spanish settlement in South America?
Their first Spanish settlement in this zone was the Fort of Sancti Spiritu established in 1527 next to the Paraná River. Buenos Aires, a permanent colony, was established in 1536 and in 1537 Asunción was established in the area that is now Paraguay.
What was the first European settlement in Florida?
St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish explorers long before Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony. Even before Jamestown or the Plymouth Colony, the oldest permanent European settlement in what is now the United States was founded in September 1565 by a Spanish soldier named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in St. Augustine, Florida.
How did the Spanish colonize the Caribbean?
The Caribbean and the Mainland In 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus founded Isabela, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World, on Hispaniola. After finding gold in recoverable quantities nearby, the Spanish quickly overran the island and spread to Puerto Rico in 1508, to Jamaica in 1509, and to Cuba in 1511.
What countries did Spain colonize in the Americas?
Spanish colonization of the Americas. The overseas expansion under the Crown of Castile was initiated under the royal authority and first accomplished by the Spanish conquistadors. The Americas were incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, Canada, and several other small countries in South America and The Caribbean.

What was the first settlement in Spain?
In 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus founded Isabela, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World, on Hispaniola.
Who were the first Spanish settlers?
Even before Jamestown or the Plymouth Colony, the oldest permanent European settlement in what is now the United States was founded in September 1565 by a Spanish soldier named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in St. Augustine, Florida.
Who established the first Spanish settlement?
After King Philip II (for whom the islands are named) had dispatched three further expeditions that ended in disaster, he sent out Miguel López de Legazpi, who established the first permanent Spanish settlement, in Cebu, in 1565.
Who were the first Spanish settlers in Puerto Rico?
The first Spanish settlement, Caparra, was founded on 8 August 1508 by Juan Ponce de León, a lieutenant under Columbus, who later became the first governor of the island. The following year the settlement was abandoned in favor of a nearby islet on the coast, named Borinquen, which had a suitable harbor.
Who first settled in America?
Five hundred years before Columbus, a daring band of Vikings led by Leif Eriksson set foot in North America and established a settlement.
Who was the first Spanish explorer to arrive in the Americas?
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs, LC-USZ62-3106. Juan Ponce de León was the first Spanish explorer to set foot in the southeastern United States. He was born ca. 1460 into a noble family.
When was the Spanish first arrived in the Philippines?
1521In 1521, the Spaniards, led by Ferdinand Magellan, discovered the islands. The Spanish conquistadores established a colonial government in Cebu in 1565. They transferred the seat of government to Manila in 1571 and proceeded to colonize the country.
What was the first US settlement?
In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I.
Why did the Spanish settle St. Augustine?
The city was to serve important functions for the Spanish Empire, defending the primary trade route to Europe along the Atlantic Ocean's main west to east current, called the Gulf Stream. As the territorial capital, St. Augustine would also defend the Spanish-claimed land against invasion.
Who was the first person to discover Puerto Rico?
Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on his second voyage to the Antilles in 1493. He found that Taino and Carib Indians populated the Islands.
What was Puerto Rico originally called?
Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico in 1493. He originally called the island San Juan Bautista, but thanks to the gold in the river, it was soon known as Puerto Rico, or "rich port;" and the capital city took the name San Juan.
Who was the first European to land on Puerto Rico?
On August 8, Juan Ponce de León founded the Caparra Village near the bay on the north coast, not far from the modern city of San Juan. It became the first European settlement in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican archeologist, Don Ricardo Alegria estimated that the island had some 30,000 inhabitants.
Where did the Spaniards originate from?
The Spaniards are descended from a mixture of various pre-medieval groups, with Spanish culture being formed by the pre-Roman Celts, the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Moors.
Who lived in Spain before the Romans?
In Hispania before the Romans, the Spanish peninsula was inhabited by several tribes which were divided between Celts and Iberos. The Fenitians and Greeks started to arrive and founded Gades and Ampurias. By the way, the name of Iberia was given by the Greeks because of the river Ebro, which in Greek is Iber.
Where did the Spanish culture originated from?
The culture of Spain is based on a variety of historical influences, primarily based on the culture of ancient Rome, Spain being a prominent part of the Greco-Roman world for centuries, the very name of Spain comes from the name that the Romans gave to the country, Hispania.
Who lived in Spain before the Moors?
Visigoth tribesSpain before the Moors Prior to the Muslim invasion of Spain in the 8th century the Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Visigoth tribes for two centuries before it was colonised by the caliphate Umayyad empire.
What was the first Spanish settlement in the New World?
In 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus founded Isabela, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World, on Hispaniola. After finding gold in recoverable quantities nearby, the Spanish quickly overran the island and spread to Puerto Rico in 1508, to Jamaica in 1509, and to Cuba in 1511. The natives fared badly. Many died in one-sided armed conflict with soldiers and settlers, or in forced servitude in mines and on plantations. Others died of diseases to which they had no immunity. By mid-century, the native Ciboney of Hispaniola and western Cuba were extinct, and other tribes, including the Arawak of Puerto Rico, were nearly so.
Where was the first Spanish town in the United States?
The first Spanish town in what is now the United States was not in Florida, but somewhere between 30 degrees and 34 degrees North. It was built in 1526, by Luis Vasquez de Ayllon, a Spanish official based on Hispaniola. In 1520, Ayllon had ordered a slaving expedition, and in 1526, set out himself with approximately 500 Spanish colonists--including women, children, and three Dominican friars--and a number of African slaves. After a false start, Ayllon built the town of San Miguel de Guadalupe. His venture was doomed from the outset. The principals of the colony quarreled, Indians attacked, slaves rebelled, and Ayllon died. Only 150 survivors returned to Hispaniola. Later, in 1528 a slightly smaller group under Narvaez plundered and skirmished along the Gulf coast from Yampa Bay to Texas, where it disintegrated. Cabeza de Vaca and three other members finally reached Mexico in 1536. From 1539 to 1543 de Soto and, after his death, Moscoso led an ever-shrinking party on a circuitous route through the southeastern and southcentral United States. From 1540 to 1542 Coronado explored the Southwest. In all cases, these Spanish explorers antagonized the Indians and failed to entice settlers to the higher latitudes.
What tribes were extinct in the early 1500s?
Others died of diseases to which they had no immunity. By mid-century, the native Ciboney of Hispaniola and western Cuba were extinct, and other tribes, including the Arawak of Puerto Rico, were nearly so. Beginning in 1508, Spanish settlements sprang up on the mainland of Central and South America.
What did Spain do in 1550?
By 1550 Spain had dominion over the West Indies and Central America and its large surviving native population. New World mines yielded gold and silver for Spain in far greater amounts than France and Portugal had ever been able to extract from West Africa. One-fifth of the total production, the quinto real, went to the Spanish Crown.
How did the Spanish colonial expansion affect the English colonial policies?
However, Spanish colonial expansion and seemingly unending sources of wealth in the New World profoundly affected English colonial policies. Drake pillaged the Caribbean in 1585-1586, broke the Bank of Spain; nearly broke the Bank of Venice, to which Spain was heavily indebted; and ruined Spanish credit.
Why did Spain annexe Portugal?
In 1580, to eliminate the threat of Portuguese expansion, Spa in annexed Portugal. Although Spain mortgaged Venezuela to a German banking house for a brief period (1528-1547), she was successful in keeping most interlopers out of her holdings from Mexico to Chile for the remainder of the sixteenth century.
What was Spain's goal in 1559?
Expecting a French challenge in North America, Spain sent a large contingent (1559-1561) to secure a settlement site on the Gulf and an overland route thence to the coast of Georgia or South Carolina.
Spanish Colonies
Identify the main Spanish American colonial settlements of the 1500s and 1600s, and the motives for establishing them
St. Augustine, Florida
Figure 3. In this drawing by French artist Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Timucua flee the Spanish settlers, who arrive by ship. Le Moyne lived at Fort Caroline, the French outpost, before the Spanish destroyed the colony in 1562.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Further west, the Spanish in Mexico, intent on expanding their empire, looked north to the land of the Pueblo Indians. Under orders from King Philip II, Juan de Oñate explored the American southwest for Spain in the late 1590s.
What was the Spanish colony of the Americas?
e. The Spanish colonization of the Americas began under the Crown of Castile, and was spearheaded by the Spanish conquistadors. The Americas were invaded and incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, British America, and some small regions in South America and the Caribbean. The crown created civil and religious structures ...
When did the Spanish settle Chile?
The Spanish did establish the settlement of Chile in 1541, founded by Pedro de Valdivia. Southward colonization by the Spanish in Chile halted after the conquest of Chiloé Archipelago in 1567.
What was the Spanish expansion?
The Spanish expansion has sometimes been succinctly summed up as "gold, glory, God." The search for material wealth, the enhancement of the conquerors' and the crown's position, and the expansion of Christianity. In the extension of Spanish sovereignty to its overseas territories, authority for expeditions ( entradas) of discovery, conquest, and settlement resided in the monarchy. Expeditions required authorization by the crown, which laid out the terms of such expedition. Virtually all expeditions after the Columbus voyages, which were funded by the crown of Castile, were done at the expense of the leader of the expedition and its participants. Although often the participants, conquistadors, are now termed “soldiers”, they were not paid soldiers in ranks of an army, but rather soldiers of fortune, who joined an expedition with the expectation of profiting from it. The leader of an expedition, the adelantado was a senior with material wealth and standing who could persuade the crown to issue him a license for an expedition. He also had to attract participants to the expedition who staked their own lives and meager fortunes on the expectation of the expedition’s success. The leader of the expedition pledged the larger share of capital to the enterprise, which in many ways functioned as a commercial firm. Upon the success of the expedition, the spoils of war were divvied up in proportion to the amount a participant initially staked, with the leader receiving the largest share. Participants supplied their own armor and weapons, and those who had a horse received two shares, one for himself, the second recognizing the value of the horse as a machine of war. For the conquest era, two names of Spaniards are generally known because they led the conquests of high indigenous civilizations, Hernán Cortés, leader of the expedition that conquered the Aztecs of Central Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro, leader of the conquest of the Inca in Peru.
What was the result of the Spanish American wars of independence?
In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the secession and subsequent division of most Spanish territories in the Americas, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, which were lost to the United States in 1898, following the Spanish–American War.
What was the Spanish empire's territory?
Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean and gaining control over more territory for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America.
Why did the Jesuits resist the Crown?
The Jesuits resisted crown control, refusing to pay the tithe on their estates that supported the ecclesiastical hierarchy and came into conflict with bishops. The most prominent example is in Puebla, Mexico, when Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was driven from his bishopric by the Jesuits. The bishop challenged the Jesuits' continuing to hold Indian parishes and function as priests without the required royal licenses. His fall from power is viewed as an example of the weakening of the crown in the mid-seventeenth century since it failed to protect their duly appointed bishop. The crown expelled the Jesuits from Spain and The Indies in 1767 during the Bourbon Reforms .
Where was the debate held in the Spanish colony of Valladolid?
Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was a moral and theological debate about the colonization of the Americas, its justification for the conversion to Catholicism and more specifically about the relations between the European settlers and the natives of the New World.
Who was the first Spanish explorer to establish a colony in Florida?
Menéndez ’s expedition wasn’t the first group of Spanish explorers who tried to start a colony in Florida, which Juan Ponce de León had claimed for Spain back in 1513. And unlike other colonizers, he wasn’t out to find gold or set up a trading network with the Native tribes.
Who was the Spanish colonist who killed the French?
Spanish Colonists, Outnumbered, Get Lucky. The massacre of the French at Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River, Florida by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in September 1565. Menéndez almost didn’t succeed.
Who was the first European to settle in the United States?
Even before Jamestown or the Plymouth Colony, the oldest permanent European settlement in what is now the United States was founded in September 1565 by a Spanish soldier named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in St. Augustine, Florida.
Who was the first European colony in America?
How St. Augustine Became the First European Settlement in America. St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish explorers long before Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony. St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish explorers long before Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony. Even before Jamestown or the Plymouth Colony, ...
Who was the chaplain of the Frenchman shipwreck?
Menéndez rushed to the location and found some shipwreck survivors, who had lost their weapons and food in the storm, according to an National Park Service account. Mendoza, the chaplain, asked for permission to offer the Frenchman a chance to survive if they converted to Catholicism.
What is the name of the inlet where the killings took place?
The inlet where the killings took place was named Matanzas, the Spanish word for “slaughters.”. “Had it not been for the hurricane, Pedro Menéndez's expedition would have probably failed, as all the others before him, and Florida would have been a French colony,” Arbesú says.

Later years
- In 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus founded Isabela, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World, on Hispaniola. After finding gold in recoverable quantities nearby, the Spanish quickly overran the island and spread to Puerto Rico in 1508, to Jamaica in 1509, and to Cuba in 1511. The natives fared badly. Many died in one-sided a...
Economy
- New World mines yielded gold and silver for Spain in far greater amounts than France and Portugal had ever been able to extract from West Africa. One-fifth of the total production, the quinto real, went to the Spanish Crown. The average value of silver shipped to Spain rose to a million pesos a year before the conquest of Peru, and to more than 35 million a year by the end …
Effects
- With such wealth at stake, Spain was concerned about possible interference by other nations. Initially, only Portugal posed a serious threat to Spanish monopoly. At the Pope's insistence Spain and Portugal had ratified the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Intended to exclude Spain from Africa and India, and Portugal from the Far East, this treaty also effectively deprived Spain of any legiti…
Aftermath
- The nine-tenths of North America lying north and east of Mexico was another matter. In the early 1500s, Spain made a few attempts to explore Florida and the Gulf coast. Around 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon, conqueror of Puerto Rico, conducted the first reconnaissance of the area. In 1519 Alonso Alvarez de Pineda explored and mapped the Gulf of Mexico. Two years later, Ponce de L…
Early history
- The first Spanish town in what is now the United States was not in Florida, but somewhere between 30 degrees and 34 degrees North. It was built in 1526, by Luis Vasquez de Ayllon, a Spanish official based on Hispaniola. In 1520, Ayllon had ordered a slaving expedition, and in 1526, set out himself with approximately 500 Spanish colonists--including women, children, and …
Later life
- Menendez arrived in August 1565 and wasted no time laying out the first St. Augustine. In September and October he massacred the French Garrison of Fort Caroline, at the mouth of the St. Johns River. In due course he founded ten outposts in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina (1565-1567); ordered exploration of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts (1570); and personall…
Crime
- The prodigious wealth flowing into Spain from its colonies and crown efforts to monopolize colonial trade prompted international smuggling and piracy. As a seafaring nation with few continental distractions and only one border to defend, England was a natural leader in both enterprises.
Reign
- Shortly after her accession to the English throne in 1558, Queen Elizabeth disestablished Roman Catholicism once and for all. She further widened the breech with Catholic Spain by rejecting Philip's proposals of marriage, and by overlooking her subjects unofficial trade with Spanish colonies and attacks on Spanish shipping. John Hawkins' first voyage to the Caribbean with Afri…